Indoctrination
by ADSigMel
Summary: The Guardian and her charges are not meshing as well as she had hoped, and her rapidly expanding abilities frighten her. She will only succeed with the help of one more knowledgeable than herself. Featuring Missouri Moseley. Third in The Guardian series.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. Rub it in my face, why dontcha? BTW, I'm not doing this every chapter, so consider this a blanket disclaimer for this fic. If I somehow gain possession of anything Supernatural-related, trust me, I'll brag here first.**

**Spoilers: Everything up through AHBL2 is fair game.**

**Reviews: I like 'em. They make me happpy. LEAVE 'EM! Please. :)**

**Summary: This story picks up where The Guardian leaves off. If you haven't already read it, you should probably read it before you read this, otherwise a lot of this story won't make sense to you.**

**A/N: If you didn't catch the note that I added at the end of the last chapter of The Guardian, I discovered that the reason I was unable to figure out where to go with that story was that I had reached a good stopping place. So I stopped. This, then, is PART THREE of The Guardian series. Also, AJ already knows this, but I discovered a few months ago that Mr. ADSigMel and I are expecting our first baby, a little boy, in June. So if you see any really psychotic craziness in my writing, feel free to call me on it and I'll fix it, 'cause it's probably just the baby screwing with my head. It happens. **

The silence within the Impala is deafening. Aside from the roar of the engine, no sound, not even a hint of Metallica, can be heard to break the monotonous tension. Dean stares straight ahead, jaw clenched, shoulders stiff, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. He has refused to allow his gaze to wander to the rearview mirror for over a week now. A couple of days ago, I finally talked Sam into getting Dean to take me to Lawrence. I'd been avoiding it, avoiding Missouri, since New Orleans. I've never met the woman, but I know that she's a powerful psychic. And I was so screwed up in the head after what went down in Louisiana that I could barely stand to be inside my own head, much less have somebody else floating around in here with me. Besides, I could barely get Dean to look at me, much less talk to me. It was pretty hard to persuade him to take me to see Missouri to get my freaky powers sorted out when he was out at some bar and I was stuck at the hotel with his brooding brother.

But then, as we were leaving the hotel in Houston after a salt-and-burn that Bobby had sent us on, I happened to pick up Dean's Zippo from the nightstand to toss into his bag. Seeing a couple hundred grave desecrations pass before my eyes, smelling the decomposing bodies and the charred remains, hearing Dean's banter with Sam, and before that, with John, as they waited for the bones to burn down…I knew I couldn't wait any longer. So I went to Sam and begged him to talk to Dean for me. I didn't tell him why I was so anxious to go to Lawrence, but the urgency in my voice was enough to convince him that I really needed to see Missouri. I have no idea how he talked Dean into it. Probably broke out the puppy-dog eyes. Nobody can resist that.

So now, here I am, in the backseat of the Impala once again. We bunked in Wichita last night. Dean left to go out immediately after our arrival at what I'm pretty sure was the skuzziest motel in town. He didn't return until after dawn, smelling like cigarettes, whiskey, and cheap perfume. Wordlessly, we all piled back into the Impala and set off again, but as the city skyline disappeared into the background, Dean's eyes drifted to the rearview mirror, where they caught the reflection of mine. "You don't have anything to prove to me, you know. It doesn't matter which of us is more badass. I don't care who gets drunker or screws more random strangers." "I've got nothin' to prove to _anybody_," he ground out in reply, "least of all, _you_." He said it as though I were lower than the chewed-up gum on the bottom of his boot. "Dean!" Sam snapped, angry at what he took to be his brother's hypocrisy. But I laid my hand on Sammy's shoulder and shook my head, and he fell silent.

Since then, not a word has been spoken between us. Dean stares out at the road stretching before us. Sam gazes out the side window, silently fuming over Dean's pigheadedness. Meanwhile, I, in the back seat, have simply curled up into the smallest ball I can form with my long limbs. I'm trying to be inconspicuous, but I don't think either of my companions is paying me any attention anyway. I don't blame Dean. It's clear enough to me that he's more uncomfortable around me than angry at me. I figure it's because we're so much alike, and that probably creeps him out some. I'll admit that I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. But under his discomfort, there is also an overwhelming sense of worry. I have no clue what concerns him, though, and he obviously isn't planning to talk about it, at least not with me.

Sammy is furious. That much is clear to everyone in the car. It's never failed to amaze me how easy it is to read him when he wants to be read. The anger is coming off of him in nearly visible waves. I know he thinks I'm being the way I am with Mel because of New Orleans. And I guess I am, to some extent. He's got it all wrong, though. I'm not mad at her. It's just weird for me to be around her. I've never met a girl that was quite so much like me. Hell, she's probably more like me than I am. She's a pro at drowning her emotional issues in whiskey and casual sex, and I had started to think that I had cornered that market.

I guess before she came along I just never really saw how my own behavior looks from the outside. Sammy always kinda rolled his eyes and went along with me. And after I made the deal…well, I could never tell if he was going along with my boozing and womanizing because he thought I deserved to have what little fun I could in the time I had left or if he just wanted to keep me distracted while he tried to find a way to get me out of it. It was probably a little bit of both. All I know is that I'm uncomfortable knowing what I now know about Mel. I mean, whether I like it or not, that girl has become part of the team. She's family. Not exactly like a little sister, but definitely like a distant cousin of whom I am very fond. And I don't want her to be like me. Especially not if she's the one that's gonna be left behind to take care of my baby brother after I'm gone. He deserves somebody way better than me…a saint, maybe. Yeah, maybe a saint would be good enough for my Sammy. Or an angel. Some shit like that. Yeah.

Of all the things that are wrong with my asshole of a brother, I honestly never thought hypocrisy would be one of them. But since he brought me back from the dead, I've begun to see that side of him. He was so angry after that faith healer traded his life for someone else's. He was even more pissed when Dad traded his own soul to save Dean. But then, what does he do? He turns around and does the same damn thing for me. At least that, though, I can understand. Sort of. I mean, hell. I don't know that I wouldn't have done the same thing if it had been Dean lying dead in the middle of that street in Cold Oak. Or maybe I would have just snapped and self-destructed.

At any rate, trading one soul for another is one thing. But this is completely different. I just don't get why Dean is so pissed at Mel. He's about the farthest thing I can imagine from a Boy Scout. So Mel likes to booze it up and screw random strangers in her spare time. How come she can't do it when that's Deans favorite pastime? I don't exactly approve, but it's none of my damn business. I just can't understand why he's being such an asshole to her about it. My brother is an idiot.

Dean has always been a drinker and a womanizer. It's part of what makes him who he is. Hell, some women actually dig that about him, though I've never understood why. Mel, though, as far as I can tell, turns to booze and casual sex to escape reality, to cope with the things that she can't face in her life. Is it just me or doesn't that make Dean's behavior worse than Mel's? It's no escape mechanism – it's just him. He can't blame his vices on anything except his own desire to indulge in them. Mel is just a woman with a lot of issues, doing what she can to deal with them in her own way. It's the wrong way, of course, and all she's doing is making things worse. But, hell, I'm no psychiatrist, and I can't tell her what to do.

I want nothing more right now than to just blow up at Dean, or better yet, beat some sense into him. The only thing stopping me is the fact that she doesn't want me to. She must be some kind of saint or angel or something – of course, I use those terms very loosely – to be so patient with my moronic brother. If I were in her shoes, I'd have given him a sizeable piece of my mind by now. Instead, I glance over my shoulder and see that she's huddled in the backseat as if trying to make herself invisible and shake my head. Returning my gaze to the window, I notice that the cornfields are thinning as we approach Lawrence. Thank God. Maybe Missouri will be able to sort this all out.


	2. The Power of Insight

As the sun began to set on Tuesday evening, Melody sat up straighter in her seat and took a deep breath as Dean pulled the Impala into a driveway that she recognized as Missouri Moseley's. They were in Lawrence, the place where it had all begun. Melody grinned in recognition as a warm, friendly figure appeared in the open front door of the house. As she made her way up the walk, she found herself wondering, if Missouri Moseley was real, who the hell had played Loretta Devine's roles in _Waiting to Exhale_ and _Boston Public_. But she pushed that thought out of her mind as irrelevant and walked into the motherly woman's open arms.

"Oh, Missouri, I'm so glad to finally meet you in person. You're the only one that can help us!"

"Shh, sweetie, don't worry," the older woman said, smoothing back Mel's hair. "We'll get everything sorted out." She pulled back to get a better look. "Well, aren't you just the cutest thing, with your bright blue eyes? But you know the things you do to yourself are wrong, don't you? Your worth is in your caring and giving spirit, not in your body, and you're not gonna find the comfort you're looking for in a bottle either. But we'll talk about that later." She turned away from Melody to hug Sam, who had slowly approached. "Boy, I declare you get taller every time I see you!" He wrapped his arms around the older woman and squeezed gently before following Melody into the house with a "Good to see you, Missouri."

Finally, she turned to face Dean, who had approached her rather warily, always on the lookout for the spoon she often wielded as a weapon. Seeing that she was empty-handed, he steeped closer to greet her, but jumped back rubbing his arm after he hand snaked out to smack him on the bicep. "What the he- heck was that for, Missouri?" he demanded, stopping himself just short of cursing. He didn't want to earn another whack. She approached him again before he could get out of reach and wrapped her arms around him. "Oh, Dean, my poor baby." She let out a muffled sob against his chest and his face took on an almost comical look of pure panic. "Sweetie, you've got to stop blaming yourself and the people around you for everything. It's not Melody's fault she's the way she is anymore than it's your fault that you're the way you are. And she's not replacing you in your brother's life. She really is meant to protect you _both_, if you'll just let her." With a sniffle, she released him, and he stepped away, red-faced. "Aww, Missouri, if you'd just stay out of my head we could avoid uncomfortable moments like this." She shook her head ruefully and ordered him to stow his and Sam's belongings in one of the guest rooms.

Once everyone was settled and Missouri had placed cookies and coffee on the table in the living room, she looked to Melody. "Have you told them yet?"

"Told us what?" Dean asked sharply, shooting Mel a suspicious glance. Sam glared at him.

She shook her head. "I wouldn't even know what to say. I was hoping you could help with that."

Missouri nodded and took a deep breath. "Okay. You know that Melody received her Guardianship from her grandmother. She would have been a Guardian, no matter who her grandfather had been. As it turned out, however, her great-grandfather, her grandfather's father, was a Guardian, too. And so she is something of a double-Guardian. The first one ever."

"Wait, what about the one from the previous generation, Mel's mom's cousin, was it?" Sam cut in.

"Yes, Cousin Zelda," she supplied. "Well, you see, she's my granddaddy's brother's daughter. Her Guardianship comes from my great-grandfather, her grandfather. But she's not related to my grandmother except by marriage. I'm the first to be descended from two Guardians by blood."

"But if it skips a generation, then what does your great-grandfather's Guardianship have to do with you?" Dean asked.

Missouri answered. "The Guardianship itself skips a generation. But not all of the powers do. Most people in the line of Guardians have some psychic ability. It's often latent, not much more than what any other person on the street would possess. But it's always there. And in Melody, the latent powers that she inherited from her great-grandfather were awakened when she received from her grandmother the Guardianship and the active powers that came with it."

"So what other powers are we talking about?" Sam asked warily.

Melody cleared her throat. "You already knew about the precognitive visions, and that was all Mama and Grandma expected me to get, because it's all Grandma had. But I've also been noticing signs of empathy. I can feel the emotions of the people around me." She flinched at the outrage that surged through Dean. "No, Dean," she ground out without looking at him, "I'm not playing Peeping Tom with anyone's feelings. I block it all out the best I can, but I can't exactly help it when people broadcast things at me like you're doing right now. It's not my fault, and I didn't ask for this!"

"What else?" Sam asked.

"Umm…yesterday, I got a post-cognitive vision off of Dean's lighter. If I hadn't already seen a salt-and-burn in real life the night before, I'd probably have passed out." She glanced at Dean. "You've put a lot of angry spirits to rest."

Ignoring her comment, the elder Winchester ground out, "Is that all, or can you fly, too?"

Melody looked to Missouri for help. "Well, I can't say for sure, but I can see clearly enough that there is a _lot_ of power that this girl has yet to discover. I would guess that she'll develop telepathy at some point. She may even have empathic or telepathic persuasion abilities."

"Persuasion like Andy?" Melody and Missouri both nodded. "Well, that could definitely come in handy in some of our cases," Sam noted. "What about kinetic powers? Telekinesis or pyrokinesis? Teleportation?"

"Probably not. Guardians are known for mental abilities, those that some might call 'passive' powers. I've never heard tell of one that was able to directly affect matter or anything in the physical world."

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Girl Wonder here going all Prue Halliwell on us," Dean muttered.

"Again with the Charmed references, Dean?" Melody snapped. "Whenever did you find time to watch your beloved Oprah with your head always up the Halliwells' asses?"

Sam burst into laughter, and even Missouri snickered quietly. Dean rose to his feet and stormed outside. A moment later, the Impala's engine growled to life and then disappeared as Dean drove off. Melody shook her head in disgust. "I swear to God, if he doesn't stop goading me…"

"Don't mind him, Mel," Sam soothed. "He's always been a jerk, and it only seems to be getting worse."

She sighed. "I'm sick of it. I get that he's uncomfortable with some of my decisions. I'm not exactly proud of the way I am myself. But as long as the mistakes I make in my free time aren't affecting our work, I don't see where he has any right to be mad at me about them."

"Honey, he's not mad at you," Missouri said softly. "He's mad at himself." Sam looked skeptically at her. "It's true, Sam. He sees a lot of himself in Melody, and he's not proud of that. And besides that, he thinks that she's not here as a Guardian for the two of you. He thinks she's here to replace him as _your_ Guardian after he's gone. That thought terrifies him, because he's not ready to turn your care over to someone else."

Melody sat back in her seat. "Oh my God. Missouri, how do I make him understand that I'm not going to replace him? I refuse to! I'm not here to take care of Sam after he's gone, I'm here to make sure he doesn't go anywhere in the first place!"

"Why won't he just accept the fact that the people who care about him aren't going to let him be carted off to hell?" Sam exclaimed in frustration.

Missouri shook her head sadly. "Sam, you know your brother's the most pig-headed man alive. Give him time, and he'll come around." She rose from her seat with a yawn and headed toward the stairs. "Don't y'all stay up too late."

They both bid her a good night. Melody tucked her feet beneath her on the comfortable armchair in which she sat. "I'm sorry, Sam."

"What do you have to apologize for?"

She let out a sardonic laugh. "What _don't_ I have to apologize for? You and Dean had a perfectly good system going until I wandered into your lives and screwed everything up. I came waltzing in with my Guardian powers and my duties to protect you both…that's _always_ been his job. Of course he feels threatened, and I didn't try hard enough to make him understand that I'm not here to usurp him. I guess the brave front I've been putting on for the past few weeks fooled him better than I thought, 'cause God knows not a waking moment has passed since my mom told us all the truth about all this that I haven't been on the verge of a panic attack. I've been trying to act all confident, like I know what's going on, like I'm capable of doing this. Trying to reassure the two of you that I'm _not_ going to get us all killed with my utter incompetence. And all I've done is make Dean think that I'm here to replace him in your life."

"Mel, it's not your fault that he doesn't trust anyone but himself to watch out for me. It's Dad's fault." He continued before she could insert a protest. "I don't blame either of them for it. That's just the way it's always been. Since I was six months old, Dean's primary responsibility in life has been _me_. It's way more than any person should ever have to deal with, but he's always handled it. And I tend to think he did a better job with me than Dad would have anyway."

They both fell silent for several long minutes. Finally, she stood and stretched. "Are you gonna go look for him or let him blow off some steam?"

"He needs some space right now. He likes to take his time and sort out new developments in his head. Maybe he'll talk tomorrow, but I doubt it. He's not real big on the talking. Far be it from Dean to indulge in any sharing and caring chick-flick heart-to-hearts. It's nothing personal, Mel…"

"Oh, I know," she cut in. "He's always been that way, even when you two were kids. I get it." She shrugged. "If it works for him, that's fine with me. I'm sure he'll come pick another fight with me when he gets back if he needs to get anything off his chest." She turned toward the stairs that led to the room where she would be staying with a "'Night, Sam" tossed over her shoulder.

Sam sank back into the sofa with a sigh. She really did know his brother.


	3. The Return of an Old Enemy

**A/N: Yes, yes, I'm well aware that it's completely unconscionable to go six months between posting chapters. In my defense, I did have a baby in the meantime, and I'm only now, after two months of motherhood, beginning to get more than three hours of sleep at a stretch. I must admit, though, this chapter has been written in its entirety for several months now, and I'm only now getting around to posting it...oops! I won't lie and say that I'll post another chapter soon. I know where this story is going, at least for the immediate future, but there's just no telling when I'll get around to sitting down to write it. If you're still following, I applaud you, and I hope you'll stick with me until the end of this. Please review and let me know you're reading?**

She closed her eyes, took a cleansing breath, and concentrated

She closed her eyes, took a cleansing breath, and concentrated. Seconds stretched into minutes before her face and fists clenched in frustration and she let out an irritated yell. "Damn it, Missouri! Why can't I do this?!"

"You're trying too hard, sugar. You've never had to strain to get a vision before, and you shouldn't now. Just relax, clear your mind of absolutely everything. Then accept whatever comes to you."

"And if whatever comes to me is something I don't want?"

"You mean a vision you don't want to see?"

"I mean a demon I don't want in my head."

"Not gonna happen in my house, baby. This place is warded so tight, it's a wonder some _humans_ make it in. And besides that, you don't _have_ any shields against possession or any other psychic manipulation. We'll work on that later, but you clearing your mind and accepting whatever happens doesn't make you any more vulnerable than usual."

Melody bit her lip and looked at Sam. In answer to her unspoken question, he nodded and said, "Yeah, we'll take you to Bobby next. He'll give you something to keep you from being possessed."

She nodded back, then returned her attention to Missouri. Melody sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the chair where the older woman reclined. Sam lounged on the sofa across the room, shooting occasional glances between his watch and the door. Melody was starting to worry a little about Dean's prolonged absence as well, but she figured he was a big boy and could take care of himself.

She closed her eyes again, and took a few more deep cleansing breaths. Finally feeling as if she could relax and let go, she began to consciously release her muscles, starting with her feet and working her way up to the small muscles of her face. She then consciously cleared her mind of all thought, feeling her concerns fade away. She lost any concept of time as she floated in the vacuum of her own mind, so she had no idea whether it had been minutes or hours before it happened. But the vision slammed into her consciousness with devastating clarity.

_The beautiful black metal beast gleamed in the early morning sunlight enveloping the peaceful clearing, but her eyes were drawn immediately to the man sitting on its hood, staring out across the calm surface of the pond. He had obviously been sitting there gazing out for quite some time, as his shoulders slumped with exhaustion…but his emotions were still in a state of turmoil. It must have been the combination of physical and emotional fatigue that led him to let his guard slip, for there was no other way that he could have been caught unawares. But the only warning was a slight rustle in the bushes off to his left, followed by a low whistling sound, and then his fingers were grabbing for the small dart protruding from his neck. Before he could do more than reach for the gun always secreted at his waist, he had slid unconscious to the ground. A tall dark-skinned man, thin but muscular, emerged from the trees to stand over the fallen man. "Well, Dean, looks like you get to be the bait yet again."_

A flash of darkness, and then…

_He doesn't stir to wakefulness the way most people would. Instead, he is unconscious one moment, and the next, he is completely lucid. He can see from the light flooding through the missing windowpane that it is not yet noon, and he assumes that it is still the same day. He tests the ropes binding him to the chair, even though he knows they will be secure. He feels for the blade he always keeps tucked into his waistband, even though he knows it will have been taken away by now if he was captured by someone skilled enough to get the drop on him. And when his captor enters the room, he stills and puts on his game-face, even though his back is to the door, and he has no clue who holds him prisoner, only knows that he is no longer alone because the quality of the air in the room has changed very slightly. "Dean-o," his jailor says with a smirk, "I think I've had about enough of playing with you and your brother. You're both going to die this time, and it won't be slow or painful, though I would love to torture you both for what you did to me the last time we met. I learned some things during my time away that I could use to make both of you wish you had never been born. But I'm going to show you two a little mercy…even dear evil Sammy. As soon as I've got you both where I want you, I'm gonna put bullets in both of your heads, and then this will all be over."_

Another flash of darkness, followed by…

_Dean is no longer the only one tied to a chair. Now Sam and Melody sit on either side of him similarly constrained. Dean is bleeding profusely from a cut above his left eyebrow, the eye itself swollen shut. Sam is unconscious, and his face is covered with bruises. Melody appears physically unharmed, but she is shaking in fear. The light has changed, and it is now early evening. Gordon paces before the trio, then tosses the contents of a bucket of water into Sam's face. The younger Winchester comes to with a splutter and a curse. "I wasn't planning on you two having made a friend. Wonder what manner of creature she must be to have gotten entangled with you. Is she one of Sam's minions that escaped from Hell when he opened the gate? Or just a misguided human trapped into thinking that you were the good guys?" He eyed her, then spat out "Christo." She piqued an eyebrow at him before commenting, "The only evil is this room, Gordon Walker, is you." He casually sauntered over to her and brutally back-handed her across the face, then laughed at Dean's snarl of outrage. She raised her head and looked into his eyes again. "Perhaps you're not evil after all, Gordon. Maybe you're just insane. I hope for your sake that's the case, because otherwise, there's probably a special corner of Hell reserved just for you." This time, he pulled back his fist and punched her. As her head rocked back, Dean and Sam both pulled at their restraints so hard that the chairs threatened to break, but they subsided when Gordon casually placed his pistol against her temple. "I'm tired of this. Like, I said before, I've had enough of playing games with you. Goodbye." With that, he calmly shot first Melody, then Dean and Sam, each very precisely, in the forehead. Once satisfied that they were all dead, he wiped off the blood that had spattered into his face then, tucking his pistol back into his waistband, he walked out of the room and out of the building, whistling under his breath._

Her eyes snapped open with a gasp. "Mel?" Sam asked cautiously. "Did you get something?"

Lost in thought, she didn't reply. "Mel?"

"Hmm?" she murmured. "Oh! No, I didn't get anything." She climbed unsteadily to her feet, refusing to look Missouri in the eye, knowing that the older woman had already seen right through her lie and was staring at her disapprovingly. She sensed the confusion Sam was feeling over her somewhat odd behavior and made a conscious effort to get hold of herself. "You know what? I think I need to take a little break. Missouri, do you mind if I borrow your car? I'd like to drive around for a bit, see the sights." She looked at the woman pleadingly, begging her with her eyes not to argue.

"Sure, honey," Missouri replied cautiously. "Why don't you take Sam with you?"

"Oh, I doubt Sam wants to come with me," she said quickly. "I was gonna call home and chat with my sister for a while, actually. It's been a few days since I've spoken to her. He'll be bored listening to my girl talk."

"That sounds like a good plan to me, Mel," Sam cut in. "Why don't you take some time to yourself, and we'll get on with this stuff when you get back. Hopefully Dean will be back by then and we can all grab some lunch later."

She tensed at the mention of Dean and, not trusting herself to speak, merely nodded before heading upstairs to get her shoes. On her way back down, she stepped surreptitiously into the room where Sam had slept and slid the key ring from his jacket pocket into her own, thanking her lucky stars that Sam's constant griping about Dean not trusting him with a spare key to the Impala had finally had the anticipated results.

Back downstairs, she took the key that Missouri indicated from its hook beside the door, and headed outside, nodding over her shoulder at Missouri's pointed, "Be careful." They both ignored Sam's looked of confusion. "I won't be more than a couple of hours," she promised, hoping all the while that it was a promise she could keep.

The moment the door closed, Sam asked, "What was that all about?"

"Nothing, dear," Missouri answered. "She's just got something she feels she needs to do on her own."

"And I guess I can't get you to tell me what it is?"

"If she wanted you to know, she'd have told you herself." The older woman stared out the front window as Melody pulled onto the street and headed away, hoping that the girl knew what she was doing. She had seen the entire vision as Melody had experienced it, and knew what was going through the young woman's mind. And as much as she worried about the plan Melody had hastily contrived, Missouri agreed that, if Melody could pull it off, it would be the best possible solution to the situation.

Although Missouri agreed that Sam should not be involved if at all possible, she maintained her awareness of the other woman's progress. If the plan should go awry, she wanted to be able to send Sam after his brother and his Guardian posthaste.

Sam, in his growing concern over his brother, stood and started to pace. He pulled out his cell phone to call Dean, despite the fact that the call had gone straight to voice mail the last half a dozen times he had attempted to reach his stubborn brother.

"Let him alone, Sam," Missouri ordered.

He looked at her and shrugged. "I just want to make sure he's okay, Missouri. It's not like him not to return my calls, or to stay gone this long at all. I mean, it's already almost ten in the morning, he's been gone for over twelve hours! I'm starting to think something may have actually happened to him."

"He's fine," she lied. "I've been keeping tabs on him, Sam, and he's just not ready to come back yet. He's got some pretty serious things to think about, and he wants to be alone for a while longer." She sighed, then continued, "If he's not back by the time Melody returns, I'll take you to him myself."

"You know where he is?"

"I'm a psychic, Sam. I can track just about anybody anywhere if I feel so inclined."

"Really?"

"Boy, why don't you quit questioning my abilities and sit down and talk to me about something pleasant."

Reassured, Sam ceased his pacing and returned to his seat. Missouri, meanwhile, hid her own growing anxiety.


	4. It's a Hard Job

**A/N: Yes, I know it's been a while. No, I have no excuse. Please accept this chapter as recompense for my absence.**

**Disclaimer: In case you were wondering, I still own nothing but the plot and my original characters. I'll brag here first if that situation changes.**

_SLAM! _Sam nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the front door crashing into the wall behind it. He soon discovered the source of the disruption as Dean came blazing into the living room. If he had been a cartoon character, steam would be coming from his ears. Melody walked in a dozen paces behind him.

"Are you fucking _insane_?!" Dean yelled.

She didn't respond, merely plopped onto Missouri's sofa and began the disassembly of the rifle she had brought in with her.

"You just killed a man in cold blood!" Dean didn't let her lack of reaction to him curtail his rant. "I don't know what you think Sam and I do with our time, but _that's_ not it!"

"It was preemptive self-defense," she finally shot back through clenched teeth. "Would you rather Sam and I had come tripping merrily along to join you?"

Finally Sam cut in. "Uh, guys? Am I missing something? Dean, where have you been? And what the hell happened to your eyebrow? You're bleeding all over Missouri's carpet."

Melody and Dean both looked at Sam as if just realizing that he was in the room. Dean was the first to answer. "Oh, nothing much has been going on. Just Little Miss Sniper-pants here has been off staging Rambo missions all by herself."

"Look, Dean, I'm sure you'd love to continue to berate me for saving your life, but the fact of the matter is that, even though I was just doing what I had to do, I just killed a man. A living, breathing human being is now worm food because of me. Regardless of your personal opinion of me, that's not something that I take lightly, so please, if you have any compassion within you whatsoever, _please_, just leave me alone for now. If that's the only thing you have to talk about, talk to Sam or Missouri, but leave me alone just for a little while and let me come to terms with what I've done. Please?" She could clearly see is mouth opening to interrupt at several points during her spiel, but she just talked faster and louder until finally, by the last plea, she was practically screaming. Then, on the final word, her voice cracked and the first of the tears she had been holding back escaped and trickled down her cheek to splash on the trembling hand in her lap. "Excuse me," she whispered as she shot to her feet and bolted out the door, leaving her rifle in pieces on the coffee table.

Sam made as if to go after her, but Dean placed a restraining hand on his chest. "What the hell is going on?" the taller Winchester demanded. "Where were you all night?"

Dean sighed and plopped onto the couch where he automatically began to reassemble to weapon his Guardian had left behind. "Early this morning, Gordon Walker got the drop on me."

"But Gordon Walker's in prison."

"Apparently, he is unaware of that fact."

"So what happened?"

After a long pause, "Three guesses." He finished putting the gun back together and slumped against the back of the couch where he sat with a weary sigh.

Sam dropped into Missouri's chair. "She didn't…"

"Oh, yes she did. One minute, I'm tied to a chair getting the shit beat out of my by our favorite psychotic Sammy-hunter between spurts of witty repartee, the next I'm covered in pink mist."

"Holy shit."

"She came traipsing in about five minutes later gripping that rifle of hers like it was super-glued to her fucking hand. Once she cut me loose, she started dragging his body away before I even got over the shock enough to start yelling at her. She never said a word, just calmly pulled his body to the middle of the room, salted him, doused him with lighter fluid, and dropped a match. The whole building's probably gone by now. She never once let go of that damn gun, and she didn't say a word until we got back here. Totally ignored me screaming at her, even when she took me back to get my car." He dropped his head back onto the back of the sofa and ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Why would she do that, Sam? Why the fuck would she take off on her own and just kill a man in cold blood, like a goddamn assassin?"

His brother's reply was so quiet that Dean almost missed it. "She watched him kill us all." Dean shot bolt upright in his seat to stare at Sam.

"What?"

Now it was Sam's turn to sigh. "Earlier today, Missouri was trying to teach her to control her powers. Mel zoned out for a while and I thought she might have gotten something but she said she didn't, so I left it alone. Then she said she needed a break so she took Missouri's car and left." He reached a hand into his jacket pocket, then nodded to himself. "She took my keys so she could get into the trunk of the Impala to get her gun. My guess is that she knew what had happened to you and what was going to happen to all three of us. And she would have known about our last run-in with Walker and what the deal was with him. So she made a decision based on her knowledge to take him out. And she did it on her own, because she knew I'd never agree to it."

The men sat together in silence for a few minutes before Sam rose and went to Missouri's kitchen to retrieve her first-aid kit. When he returned, he set to work on Dean's split eyebrow. His brother was too lost in thought to even protest that he could patch it himself. Dean knew what Melody was going through. For all his ranting about her murder of Gordon Walker, he knew all too well what it felt like to kill another person. He had gunned down innocents to protect his brother from the demons possessing them, and he felt bad about it, but he'd do it again if he had to. His primary feeling was one of guilt. She should never have been put in that position in the first place. He couldn't help the fact that her life had been turned upside-down when she had been chosen as their Guardian, but he knew that he had let his guard down that morning and allowed Walker the opportunity to capture him. He had fucked up and caused her to be put in a situation where she felt she had to kill someone to protect her charges. Dean grudgingly admitted that she had probably done the right thing. He had wanted Walker dead the last time they had run across him, but Sammy hadn't. Dean really hadn't expected the other hunter to come gunning for his family again after all this time, but he'd been wrong before. It all came back to the fact that this was his fault. He had let Walker get the drop on him, and Melody was paying the price.

Suddenly, Sam's voice cut into his reverie. "Stop blaming yourself, Dean. It's not your fault that Gordon Walker was insane. If anyone's to blame for what happened, it's me."

Dean _really_ didn't want to get into a discussion about this, but he couldn't help asking, "How do you figure?"

"Well, I was the one that let her go after you. I should have known she was lying about that vision. After all, I've had them myself, I should have been able to tell. And besides that, Walker wouldn't have had you, wouldn't have even been here in the Lawrence in the first place, if he hadn't been out to get me."

"That's ridiculous, Sam," Missouri's voice rang out from behind them. "You are not at fault for that man's actions, and there was no way for you to know she had a vision. She hid it so well that even I wouldn't have known if I hadn't seen it along with her."

"Wait, you saw it?" Dean cut in. At her solemn nod, Sam finished up with Dean's eyebrow and, as he put away the supplies, asked, "How is that possible?"

"Well, she's very powerful. Probably the most powerful psychic I've ever come across. I was shielding her the best I could to keep any other psychics or other entities that might be in the area from being alerted to her presence. But in order to do that, I had to sort of dial into her. And since we were connected and she was broadcasting so powerfully, I saw what she saw."

"And what exactly did you see?" Dean asked.

"Basically, Dean, Walker used you as Sam-bait. Again. Only this time, Sam got caught trying to rescue you, and Melody along with him. He wasn't expecting her, thought she was a demon at first. But even after finding out that she wasn't, the fact that she was with the two of you was enough proof for him that she was evil. He executed the three of you one by one, then walked out of there cool as a cucumber. Believe it or not, boys, that man got exactly what was coming to him. It's not generally up to us mere mortals to decide who lives and who dies, but Gordon Walker? He deserved to die. And that's all there is to it." With that, she walked back out of the room as silently as she had entered it.

******************************************************************************

Despite the warm late summer Kansas sun beating down on her, Melody felt cold as she walked along the sidewalk lining Missouri's street, humming to herself. She had passed half a dozen stroller moms out with their joggers, each of whom looked at her with something akin to terror before she realized that she was humming "Bohemian Rhapsody," specifically the second verse, over and over. "Mama, just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead…"

_This is ridiculous. I didn't have a choice, and if I hadn't done it, he would have killed all three of us. I did what I had to do._

It didn't make her feel any better. Suddenly, "Sweet Home Alabama" rang out from her pocket, and she pulled out her cell phone. "Granny?"

"Hey, Moonpie. How are you holding up?" It had been years since anyone had called her by that name, a throwback to the time before she lost the layer of baby fat covering her cheekbones. Her annoying older cousin Lamont had insisted that her face was round and yellow like a Moonpie, and the name stuck until she finally threw a total hissyfit when he used the embarrassing nickname in front of her junior prom date. Today, it just made her think of simpler times.

She smiled wanly before replying softly, "I've seen better days."

"You didn't have a choice. You know that right?"

"Wait, you know what I did? Grandma, how do you know?"

"We're connected, you and me, baby. I could feel that something wasn't quite right with you for the past week or so, but it all of a sudden got really bad a couple of hours ago. I couldn't reach you on your cell phone so I called Missouri instead."

"But how did you know I was anywhere near Missouri? How do you even know her?"

"Oh, M and I go way back. We were roommates at Spelman."

"Huh."

"Anyway, I knew John's boys would bring you to her sooner or later. I just took a wild guess and called hoping that it had happened sooner rather than later. She told me that you were there and what she had seen happening in your vision this morning. She also told me what you were planning on doing. I assume your plan worked?"

"It did. He won't be a problem for us again." She paused before continuing, "I'm trying hard to be okay with how I took care of the problem, but it's not really working out for me that well."

"The first one is always the hardest, baby. It never gets easy exactly, but it won't be this bad every time."

"What does 'every time' mean? Grandma, are you trying to tell me that I'll have to do this _again_?! I can't do that! The…" She paused to make sure no more stroller moms were within earshot. "…non-human…bad guys are not a big deal to me. I can do angry spirits and wendigos and vampires. Werewolves aren't my ideal, but I can cope with them, too. But the man I…killed…today was just that – a man. He was a human being just like me. He was kinda crazy and incredibly dangerous to my charges and me, but he was a person. I can't just go around killing _people_, Grandma!"

Suddenly, the voice on the other end of the line became sharp. "Melody Marie, you listen to me and you listen well. You have a job to do. Your main priority in life is the well-being of those boys. Now you're new at this and you're still learning, but you better believe that there are a _lot_ of very evil humans in this world, and some of them I would put a few rounds in before I would salt and burn the corpse of a malevolent ghost. I am a fan of mankind, but when men try to kill you and your charges, you damn well better kill them first. People like the man that you…dealt with…this morning? They're no different than anything else that you're hunting. In fact, they're worse, because, unlike your average werewolf or vampire or angry spirit, they had a choice, and they chose wrong. You need to get that through your head right now. Because it's hard, but it _will_ happen again and you _will_ have to deal with it and move on. Your life depends on it."

Melody was silent.

"Do you understand me, Melody?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Alright then. You know you can always talk to me, right? About anything?"

"Yes, ma'am, I know."

"Good. Missouri told me you're doing really well at getting your powers under control, but you've still got a ways to go. Call and check in with me before you leave for your next job, okay?"

"Okay, Grandma."

"I love you, Moonpie."

"I love you, too, Granny."

Melody closed the phone and looked up to find that she had made her way back to Missouri's house, so she stuck the phone back in her pocket and made her way inside. Dean and Sam were sitting side by side on the sofa, each drinking a beer. She went to the kitchen and helped herself to a glass of iced tea from the pitcher in the fridge before joining her charges in the living room.

"You okay?" Sam asked as she sank into a comfortable armchair.

"No. But I will be." He nodded.

"You did good work today, Mel," Dean said softly, without looking at her. "Thanks."

"No problem," she replied in a deliberately casual tone. Inside, she was squealing at the fact that, apparently, not only was Dean no longer ready to call the cops to report her as a murderer, but he was even speaking to her again. But he wouldn't want to make a big deal of the fact that their long-standing cold war was over as suddenly as it had begun. And she was okay with that. Maybe this partnership wasn't doomed to failure after all.


	5. Fired!

**A/N: I have no excuse, so I won't try to make one. I do apologize for the wait, though. This is the last chapter for this story. The series will continue with a fourth story at some point, but I really have no idea when that might be. I'm just not really feeling The Guardian series right now. I may go back to work on The Plan. We'll see. **

**Disclaimer: I disclaim. Not mine. I own nothing. The plot and the OCs actually own me. I wish Sam and Dean would express a bit of ownership over me sometimes, too, but that's neither here nor there.**

"Oh my God, Missouri, are you being serious?"

"Yep. I'm done with you, sugar, not a thing left I can teach you. Anything else you can learn, you'll have to learn it on your own."

Melody threw her arms around the older woman before racing off to find her cell phone and call Sam. It had been nearly four months since she had been on the road with her charges, and it was now nearly Christmastime. The boys had stuck around with her at Missouri's for maybe a week after the Gordon Walker incident, but then reports of a coven of witches wreaking havoc in North Dakota had come to them. So, while Melody stayed behind to keep working with Missouri to harness her powers, Sam and Dean had hit the road to take care of it. After that, there had been three lower-level demons, a poltergeist, and a werewolf. Currently, the boys were out in Nevada, dealing with what they thought was a Sumerian sand monster of some sort, but it was looking now like it was just a bunch of ancient history nerds with way too much time on their hands goofing around.

That would explain why Melody hadn't seen any visions about the creature. She had been working her ass off for the past three months, and it looked like her powers were now fully under her control. She could summon visions of danger her charges would face at will. She wasn't able to see into the future at random, though. That, however, was the only one of her powers that seemed to be constrained to that which was necessary for her duties as a Guardian.

She was now in control of her post-cognitive visions and could choose not to see the past of the objects she touched unless she wanted to, and she could specify what she wanted to see about any given object. Also, she was surprised to learn that her post-cognitive abilities worked on living things as well as objects. So she could touch a household pet, or even a person, and see what she wanted to of its past. She had worked particularly hard to hone that ability to avoid any mishaps, since the first time she discovered that she could see the pasts of people as well as objects, she was hugging Dean upon his return from a hunt. Suffice it to say, she threw up for half an hour and never looked at a set of triplets without blushing again. Dean just shrugged and grinned. After all, how offended could she really be? Mel was hardly a prude, right?

With regard to her empathetic abilities, in addition to being able to block out the feelings of those around her, she could now pass those feelings on to others, as well as her own emotions. She was also quite skilled at telepathy. She was really glad to have Missouri's help with that one, since, once she unlocked the ability, she couldn't figure out how to turn it off, and was finding it very hard to function with every mundane thought of every person and animal within a two-hundred-yard radius zipping through her head at warp-speed. For a while there, she really thought she might lose it entirely. But eventually, she was able to get it under control, and now she could pick and choose who she wanted to hear in her head. Again, she had to be careful with this power around Dean. Fortunately, the only errant thoughts of his that she had picked up while she was learning to block the voices out had been about food, but the triplet fiasco had made her work doubly hard just to make sure that she didn't catch him thinking about anything else that would scar her for life. Once she was able to control the flow of thoughts of others into her mind, it was relatively easy to learn to reverse the current. She could now project her thoughts to single or multiple recipients at will.

Yes, the abilities that had been passed down to her from generations upon generations of Guardians were hers to wield. But when her charges were at Missouri's between hunts, they had done their best to make sure that she was equally capable of pulling her weight in more physical ways. They were sorely disappointed. Sure, she was a crack shot with most firearms, and she could hold her own against the average human opponent in a fistfight. But a vampire or any other corporeal being with any amount of enhanced strength would beat the crap out of her. So would most burly biker types. So any demon attacks and most attempts at hustling pool would be out of her league. Not that she could play pool worth a damn anyway. She also had the uncanny ability to trip over thin air sometimes. Not often enough to really be able to label her as _clumsy_, but certainly often enough to be worried about her getting captured and eaten by a wendigo. Nothing to be done for it, then, but to make sure she always had reliable backup on a hunt.

Bobby had come down for a couple of weeks, too, on his way between somewhere and somewhere else – he was a vague one, that Bobby Singer – and taught her some of the more technical skills of the hunter. He drilled her _ad nauseum_ on how to dispatch every supernatural creature she'd ever heard of, and a great many that she hadn't. By the time he left, she could, at least in theory, exorcise a low- to medium-level demon, slay a vampire, banish a banshee, and kill a zombie, among other things. All pure hypothetical, since there was not a single creature around upon which she could test her newfound knowledge. Her Devil's Trap, at least, was perfect. Any demon that could be held within such a snare would be at her mercy, as long as she could get it into the circle.

Melody and Bobby had taken a while to warm up to each other. He had an inherent distrust of people he didn't know in general, and female hunters in particular. Combine that with the fact that both of John Winchester's boys were both head-strong and red-blooded, and his internal sensors immediately intoned, "Danger, Bobby Singer." But he knew the Guardian legend as well as anyone, and if Sam and Dean had indeed been "assigned" a Guardian, this woman was clearly she. No one else, no demon or stalker or whatever, could ever have learned them so well.

Melody, for her part, had never really been able to get a read on Bobby, either. His loyalty to the Winchesters seemed utterly unswerving, but there was just something about him that rubbed her the wrong way right from the start. Maybe it was just that he was so gruff. She wasn't used to people being short with her, being a pretty likeable girl in general. By the time he left, they were able to tolerate each other, but it was clear to both sides that they would never be fast friends. Their only link would always be their shared devotion to Dean and Sam.

"Hey, this is Sam. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." _Beep_.

"Sammy, I just got the best early Christmas present ever - Missouri says I'm free! Please come get me, I miss being on the road with y'all so much!" Melody ended the call, her excitement still written all over her face.

The Sam-situation was so much better now. It had been pretty crappy in the beginning. She had tried hard not to think about what had happened outside their motel room that night in New Orleans before they had faced Papa Zeke. She figured maybe if she just pretended nothing had happened between her and Sam, the resolutions they had reached about inter-trio relationships - or whatever – being an incredibly bad idea, he would forget about his lust for her. It was probably just the atmosphere anyway…New Orleans makes people do things they wouldn't normally do, and they had been flashed immediately before after all. Surely that was all it was, right? Wrong. As soon as all three of them were back together at Missouri's and on speaking terms again, Sam had glanced at Melody across the dinner table and it was just like they were right back on that sidewalk curb in New Orleans again, never mind the fact that Missouri and Dean were sitting _right there_. He could obviously tell that she knew what he was feeling, because a strong feeling of embarrassment joined the waves of lust emitting from him.

Missouri shuddered delicately. "Sam, you've been spending too much time with your brother. I don't think that's even legal in this state." And with that, Melody and Sam were both blushing furiously and excusing themselves from the table to go have a heart-to-heart.

"I'm so sorry, Mel. I really can't control it, you know? I mean, I'm not as bad as Dean, but I'm still a guy, and it's hard being around a brilliant, funny, spunky, beautiful woman day in and day out without imagining the possibilities."

"Sam…"

"I know, I know. There _are_ no possibilities for us, not really. We couldn't get involved, even if you felt the same way about me, because it would be disastrous for our team dynamic."

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Sam."

"Don't apologize. I'm the one who should be telling you how sorry I am. I really will try to keep it under control. It can't be comfortable for you to have me feeling this way all the time."

She shrugged. "Like you said, you can't help how you feel. Anyway, I get horny, too. I know how it is. I just have to learn to block other people's emotions better. It'll be fine."

And she did work harder after that to control her empathetic abilities. It was hard enough to deal with her own emotions, forget about trying to manage those of everyone around her as well.

Missouri had tried to block Melody from her mind in the beginning, but Mel was far more powerful than anyone had anticipated. That was part of the reason why Missouri had been trying to block the younger woman. She was pretty scared of the power Melody wielded, and of the ease with which she had learned to use them. Four months might sound like a long time, but it had taken Missouri herself most of her life just to develop the senses that she had. The fact that Melody had learned so many more powers so well in such a short amount of time…well, Missouri knew Melody wasn't evil by any stretch of the imagination, but if she ever _did_ happen to fall in with the wrong crowd? Let's just say she could wreak some serious havoc, even without any "physical" abilities. After all, who needs to be able to throw a bus at someone when you can get into the bus driver's head and make him crash into your target?

Melody was a little offended that Missouri was so worried, but she saw where the other woman was coming from. She wasn't so much worried about going all evil!Mel of her own accord, but she wasn't at all immune to demonic possession. No one seemed to know whether powers like hers would be accessible to a demon were she to be possessed, so she took anti-body-snatching precautions in spades, just in case. She had personal qualms about tattoos, due to the fact that her mother had always thought them "tacky," but she got protection sigils etched across her hipbones, runes of protection encircling her left wrist under her watch, and a large protective circle covering almost the entire expanse of her back. Better safe than sorry, right?

The opening strains of "Renegade" brought her attention to the cell phone she had set on the table beside her as she absently rubbed the ink on her wrist. "Sam!" she enthused, then continued before her caller even had a chance to respond. "I take it you got my message, _please_ tell me y'all are on your way back to get me!"

"Actually, Melody," he said coldly, "_we_ are not on our way anywhere. _I_, however, am on my way to Bobby's to try and figure out what the fuck has happened to my brother and how to get him back."

She gaped at the phone for a long moment before sputtering intelligently, "What?"

Sam's harsh laugh, one she had never thought to hear directed at her, rang out over the phone line. "Is that all you can come up with, oh great and powerful Guardian? Tell me, did you really fail to see Dean being kidnapped by a demon, or did you see it and just not think that was the kind of information you should share with the rest of the class?"

Apparently it was taking Melody's mind longer to catch up with the situation than usual, because her response was, "Dean's been kidnapped?"

Sam finally lost all pretense of patience. "Yes, you fucking idiotic bitch, my brother has been kidnapped by a fucking demon, and we had no idea it was coming because _you_ didn't warn us! You know what, Mel? If this is what your 'protection' is like, I think we'll take our chances without you. Feel free to go back to Alabama and practice law or fuck some more random dudes you pick up in bars or something. The Winchesters and the hunting community in general will be better off. If you try to come near me, or even contact me again, I swear to God I'll kill you." There was a loud click in her ear as he broke the connection on his end. By the time she realized what was happening and noted with a strange sense of detachment that her entire body was shaking, it was all over. She wondered stupidly, _Is there some sort of committee that terminated Guardians can appeal to for reinstatement?_


End file.
